Austria To Pull Out of CERN

andre.david notes an AFP report that Austria has announced its intention to withdraw from CERN, citing budget concerns, adding: "Austrian particle physicists are not happy with this. From HEPHY, the Austrian Institute for High Energy Physics: 'All of a surprise Johannes Hahn... announced that he wants to terminate the Austrian membership at CERN... This [would] affect spin-off projects like the planned cancer treatment center MedAustron... which is dependent on collaborating with CERN... Strangely enough this intention just arrives at a time where scientists are about to harvest the fruits of LHC...' Will other countries follow suit?" "Austria is pulling out of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Science Minister Johannes Hahn announced Thursday, citing budget concerns. The €20M ($26.9M) yearly membership in CERN... makes up 70 percent of the money available in Austria for participation in international institutes and could be better used to fund other European projects, he said. Hahn said he hoped Austria could find 'a new kind of cooperation' with CERN and described Vienna's withdrawal from the project as a 'pause,' noting that some 30 states were already working together with the Geneva-based centre without being members. The newly-available funds will now allow Austria to take part in new European projects, boost its participation in old ones as well as help the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the country's main organization funding research."

That's ok...

[TheRealFixer]

I guess that means more particles for the rest of us!

Re:RSS?

[drinkypoo]

SLASHDOT TO PULL OUT OF HTML

Does slashdot not have testing servers, or what? Hey guys, you shouldn't make changes to live servers until you test them first...

OTOH, perhaps this is their response to everyone's bitching about the front page. Don't like the way slashdot looks? Write your own interface, bitches.

Trend?

[Mendoksou]

Is this the start of a trend due to economically troubled times? This conCERNs me.

Bad puns aside, I guess with an economy like this, CERN should expect some resistance. ;)
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2008/PR14.08E.html

Re:RSS?

[tpgp]

Does slashdot not have testing servers, or what?

Testing is for wimps. Real men upload their data to an...

Austria's budget

[Anonymous Coward]

They are going to put the money into building everyone secret underground rooms.

Re:That's ok...

[Red Flayer]

I know, right?

I mean, whoop-de-doo, Austria's all "put another shrimp on the barbie, mate" and "crikey! we've got killer spiders mate" and "go root yerself, we're pulling out of CERN!".

The rest of the nations participating in CERN will be just fine without them.

Clearly for religious reasons

[sabre86]

Given Austria's religious makeup [wikipedia.org], can we be surprised that they're pulling out?

The real reason Austria pulled out

[Concerned Onlooker]

After taking a public relations beating like this I'm surprised anyone is willing to fund the LHC.

Visit to the large hadron collider [comedycentral.com]

Re:That's ok...

[Xest]

Austria and Australia are different countries.

Australia is the one you describe, Austria is the one that's given us such gems through the years as Adolf Hitler and Josef Fritzl.

But they also have given us the likes of Gödel, Mozart, Schrödinger and his cat I suppose ;)

Re:That's ok...

[Red Flayer]

Thanks for clearing that up. I can't believe all this time I thought "down under" was in the heart of Europe.

Now that I've looked at a map, it also becomes clear why, though Australia is infested with crocodiles, Belgium isn't. I had always wondered about that.

But I still have one unanswered question... why is the alphorn so similar to a didgeridoo? Surely that isn't coincidence.

Re:That's ok...

[deepershade]

Actually, we can't confirm the cat's existance. We never opened the box.